Reliance Jio reports Rs 7.68 cr loss in H1-FY15

Reliance Industries’ data services venture Reliance Jio Infocomm which is yet to launch its services commercially in India, has reported a net loss of Rs 7.68 crore for the six month ended September 30, 2014, a significant increase from Rs 4.06 crore loss reported in the corresponding six month period last year.

The company had posted a net loss of Rs 6.45 crore in the six month period ended March 31, 2014.

The total revenues of Reliance Jio were at Rs 0.02 crore for the period, flat from Rs 0.02 crore in the corresponding six month period last year.

Akash Ambani & Isha Ambani join Reliance Jio board: Reliance Industries informed BSE that the company’s board of directors has approved the appointment of Isha Ambani & Akash Ambani as directors of Reliance Jio. It also noted that Akash Ambani is “closely involved in the development of products & digital services applications in Reliance Jio.”

Reliance Jio $750 million loan: Last month, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited had secured a $750 million loan backed by Korea Exim Bank and guaranteed by Reliance Industries (RIL). The company had mentioned that this loan will be primarily used to finance goods and services procured from Samsung Electronics for rolling out the infrastructure of RJIL.

While Reliance Jio didn’t disclose any specific details on what goods & services it is procuring from Samsung, there were reports of Reliance Jio in talks to procure BTS (Base Transceiver Station) infrastructure for its 4G rollout.

Reliance Industries was also earlier rumored to be in talks with Samsung to buy LTE handsets, but apparently that deal fell through over pricing issues, as Reliance Jio Infocomm wanted the handsets to be priced at Rs 5,500 while Samsung refused to go below Rs 8,500 along with a commitment that Reliance purchase 3 million handsets from them.

Recent Reliance Jio developments

Apart from this, Reliance Jio is piling on infrastructure sharing deals, by signing a deal with a new company almost every month, the most recent one being with Indus Towers (a threeway joint venture between Airtel, Vodafone and Idea). A full list here.

In June this year, Reliance Industries chairman and CEO Mukesh Ambani had informed that they would launching its data services in a phased manner across India in 2015, after conducting expanded trials which was expected to launch in July and continue through the end of 2014 and early 2015.

Prior to this, Reliance Industries had mentioned that it has rolled out free Wi-Fi hotspots in eight locations at Ahmedabad and nine locations at Baroda and Surat. It had also stated plans of rolling-out high speed internet services via optical fibre (FTTX) in over 900 cities/towns in the country.